News

Is it worth it?

What it is: Ballymacquiff Castle is a 16th-century keep in rural Co Galway, 40ft high and 25ft wide. Seven miles from Gort, 5½ miles from Kinvara and one mile from the village of Labane, this run-down three-storey edifice is next to a disused railway line. With views over the Burren Mountains from its parapets, it is a mile from the N18, the Galway/Limerick road. Once home to the Burke family — early Anglo-Norman settlers in Connacht — this four-acre plot is now owned by a local farmer.

It will go under the hammer on December 10 in Bradley’s bar in Labane.

The problems: It’s far from unique — there are about 1,500 of these structures, in various states of repair, dotted around the countryside. Farmers often see them as a nuisance, an unwanted obstacle dividing up valuable grazing land. In recent years, only valiant foreigners, seduced